8.6.1.4 - MEN BEHIND CYPHERS AND CODES

Cryptography is duly involved with the writing mechanisms and since its birth it has always been the object of intensive scholar studies and researches. As afore seen its beginning landmarks started in Renaissance and since then many were the names who contributes so much for its advancements. Among them are:

- Blaise de Vigenère, is considered as one of the fathers' of modern cryptography. He was born in April 5, 1523, in Saint-Pourçain, France. Diplomat and cryptologist, he wrote many books. In 1585 he published the book: Traicte de Chiffres.
In which the author described an auto cipher system.

- Charles Wheatstone, was a British scientist and inventor of many scientificals breakthroughs among them encryption techniques known as Playfair cypher commoly used up the WWI.

- Claude Elwood Shannon, American mathematician and eletrical engineer. He has been called as the father of information theory and a pioneer in the desing theory of digital circuit. In 1948 he published an essay entitled: "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" focusing on best on the best way to encode information.

- Frederick Marryat, British naval officer. In 1817 he invented a code, which transmitted the messages using color flags, and he called it as semaphore.

- Friedrich Wilhelm Kasiski, was a Prussian infantry officer.In 1863 he published a book entitled: Die Geheimschriften und die Dechiffrierkuns - Secret writing and the Art of Deciphering '-.This is was the first paper published related with messages decoding using the polialphabet substitution cyphers principle, mainly the one invented by Vigenère. Since then Kasiski is considered as a pioneer of modern cryptanalysis.

- Giovanni Battista Porta, or Giambattista Della Porta, Neapolitan mathematician; in 1565 he published a book entitled: De Furtivis Literarum Notis. It describes a ciphering substitution system that enable one letter of the plain text to be written in any one of the eleven different ways.

- Girolamo Cardano, Italian physician and mathematician;In 1556 he invented a revolutionary ciphering device know as Cardano grill. Basically the device consists in a template provide with several holes. The holes are ramdomly ordered and corespond to the number of letters in the message to be encrypted. To send the message, the gril is placed over a piece of paper and the letters of the message are written through the holes of the grill in the same order in which the holes are numbered. For deciphering the message merely place an identical grill over the text and reading the letters revelead through the holes.

- Herbert Osborne Yardley, American cryptologist. In 1931 he published the book: "The American Black Chamber". It describes the organization of the American cryptanalysis department, which was responsible for the deciphering of the Japanese diplomatic code whereas supplied vital information for the American negotiators during the Washington Naval Conference in 1921.

- Johannes Trithemius, was a Benedictine monk who live in Germany. In 1518 he published the first book on cryptography named Poligraphia dealing with simple substitution cypher.

The original book Poligrafia.
Courtesy: National Security Agency - USA

- Leon Battista Alberti,Italian architec, phylosopher and cryptologyst. He was born in Genoa 1404. He invented the first polialphabetic cypher system, nowadays known as the Alberti's cypher as well as the machine-assisted encryption using his cipher disc.

- Samuel F.B. Morse, American; in 1838 he invented the electromagnetic telegraph and the Morse code; a susbtitution ciphering system with dots and dashes replacing the letters.













The code invented by Samuel Morse showing the alphabet transcription in dash and dot and the correspondent phonetic equivalents.